Newsday from New York, New York • 152

years builders completed more than 36 million square feet of office space. Although that doesnt yet equal the amount of space built in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the boom followed years of inactivity during the citys fiscal crisis: only 4.42 million square feet of office space went up from 1975 to 1979. And the latest figures dont include the surge in residential towers built to take advantage of an expiring tax incentive program, and the millions of square feet of office space on the drawing boards. Development means tax revenue, jobs, retention of business, and housing. And many architects and developers hold that tall buildings are a der the present zoning are simply too big.

Ulrich Franzen, a noted architect, said that expensive development drives out the small, odd and functional shops that make for a varied street life. "If you build a very tall building, the store on the ground floor has to rent for 8200 a square foot, he said. "Your junk store isnt going to be able to afford that. Even as late as the 1960s, architects could design buildings that suited themselves and their clients, and which were smaller than what was permitted under the zoning laws. These days, its almost certain that a new building wifi be as big as the zoning allows, and then some.

As architect Eli Attia put it: "The eco- nomica that move New York City is such that no developer, no institution can afford now not to utilize fully the potential of the land. The competition for marketable sites is tense. Since 1980 much of it in the last three SL Bartholomew's Church has bean fighting to tear down its community house to make way for an office tower. Three designs for the tower were turned down by the landmarks commission, and St. Barts sued, charging Its constitutional right to the separation of church and state has been violated.

By Carol Polsky WOMAN rose up recently before the Landmarks Preservation Commission at a public hearing on an Upper West Side stone mansion endangered by development. "Please protect these wonderful buildings! she cried. "We love them because theyre not glass and theyre not towers! Its a scene being played over and over in Manhattan: the march of high-rise buildings down the avenues, into the side streets, out of midtown and into the neighborhoods. Impassioned city-dwellers rise up to fight changes they resent and often cannot control. One of the citys most heated issues is development.

A building boom since 1980, when office construction alone increased ninefold over the previous five years, has given urgency to the question: Is New York City, the city of skyscrapers. getting too tall, too dense and too homogenous for its own good? Everybody loves the Empire State Building. But at public hearings and local community board meetings and block associations, what you hear is that the excitement of the skyscraper, when multiplied infinitely, means a loss of variety on the ground, of history and human scale and the vision of sky above. Now, that concern is intensifying as a growing number of architects, planners and regular folks worries about the quality of life when more and more of the city is built to the irmirmim size allowed under the zoning code. And they wonder whether the citys incentives to encourage development on Manhattans West Side will simply reproduce the overbuilding that has offended lovers of street life on the East Side.

"It's a very new idea that architects and planners are waking up to the idea that maybe it's too much." said Frances Halsband, an architect who heads the professional organization, the Architectural League of New York and sits on the city Landmarks Preservation Commission. "The next thing is what do we do about it." The city has already altered its zoning code in recent years to restrict development on the East Side, and on midblocks on the Upper East and Upper West Sides. And it has moved in some neighborhoods to keep development compatible with existing buildings. But critics want to see more: more stringent design controls, lower densities, more attention to the effects of development on sunlight and congestion. Tomorrow, a group of West Side Democrats, including Congressman Ted Weiss, State Senator Franz Leichter, and City Council woman Ruth Messinger, will hold a hearing on the planned 42nd Street redevelopment project, which proposes to plant some of the citys biggest buildings in the famous entertainment district.

These critics of the project will be calling for new Times Square zoning that would reduce allowable building size and protect theater- and arts-related en- CAB wa Other recent projects besides Times Square have forced attention to issues of density and height. Two buildings nearly 70 stories high will tower over Columbus Circle at the Coliseum site, just down the street from the citys tallest residential towers also over 70 stories tall which pierce the sky overlooking Central Park at West 57th and 56th streets. Even St. Bartholomews Episcopal Church on Park Avenue seeks to raise hinds by converting their church property into high-rise real estate. 'Today, everyone is trying to build everything thev can and today the consequences are visible, said Kent Barwick, president of the Municipal Art Society and a former chairman of the citys Landmarks Preservation Commission.

"You dont have to wait to Bee how Times Square is going to be you can walk over to 57th Street and see a forest of towers that are dramatically out of scale with the city, which rob the air and the light, he said. "Many people share my impression that the buildings being erected un 4 Part II NY ncwsday. Wednesday, November 19, Stephen CwUgneto.